'My Ordeal Was Perfectly Designed'
A thought-experiment to contact younger parts of ourselves.
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Survival Tool #32: Embrace Your Young Parts
Nobody would choose a toxic workplace ordeal — at least, not consciously.
But what if the situation we’re facing at work is precisely calibrated to reveal the old hurts we carry that are most in need of our attention, if we’re going to move to our next level of growth?
This is a question I’ve thought about a lot, and I’m wary of even broaching it.
The suggestion that a painful, abusive or exploitative working environment could somehow be serving a higher purpose has to be handled with care. There’s always the risk that such a sentiment could be used to bypass a reckoning with the depth of the harm, or shift responsibility for cruel or bullying behaviour onto the target. (Survival Tool #25: Name Workplace Bullying for What It Is).
Toxic Workplace Survival Guy has enough first-hand experience of the realities of the toxic workplace to never want to fall into either of those traps.
But assuming those pitfalls can be avoided, the question remains: Might there be scope to approach our toxic workplace ordeal as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves? In particular, could we use our toxic workplace as a mirror to reveal those younger parts whose unmet needs for validation, co-regulation and safety leave us prone to seek those things where they cannot be found — in the corridors of the corporation?
Benefit of Hindsight
Speaking from my own experience, I suspect that it’s next to impossible to work with these questions when we’re still stuck (for now) in our toxic workplace. The boundary violations and atmosphere of threat suck up so much energy, it would take bodhisattva-levels of self-possession to use the daily frustrations as a spotlight to shine a light on our unhealed childhood wounds.
But with time, new perspectives arise. (Survival Tool #18: Give Yourself Time to Recover).
In my own case, it was only years after the ordeal was over that I began to see how much of the suffering I experienced sprang from the fact that people in authority were not reflecting back my desire to be seen as “good,” “professional,” “talented,” “trustworthy,” and “liked.” At the time, being deprived of these basic signifiers of belonging felt like the ultimate betrayal — and made it hard to see the many nuances at work in my situation clearly. (Survival Tool#26: Become Trauma-informed).
Now, I can see that none of the people I saw as my persecutors — or those I felt had let me down — had the capacity to give me any of those qualities, or take them away.
Of course, it’s natural to want validation, and to be treated with respect. But it was the neediness of my young parts who wanted so desperately to be seen and to belong that gave authority figures so much power to influence my inner state, and imbued my ordeal with its potent emotional charge. (Survival Tool #9: Don’t Let Your Anger Come out Sideways?).
And it was also those young parts that enrolled me in Drama Triangles where I cycled rapidly between the role of Victim, Rescuer and Persecutor in ways that left me in a state of constant wariness, confusion and fear. (Survival Tool #12: Escape Your Drama Triangle).
Drawing a Line
Now, I suspect I’d just shrug at some of the behaviours that felt like such outrages at the time. I’d feel compassion for people so cut off from their own essence that they could only regulate their own nervous system by dumping their pain and anxiety on others. And I’d feel more stable in my core.
I believe that increased sense of confidence is due in large part to the intense inner work I’ve undertaken in the years since my toxic workplace ordeal, particularly the two-year Timeless Wisdom Training with Thomas Hübl and team, where I have dived deeply into how personal, ancestral and collective trauma lives in me. (Resonant World #10: How Collective Healing Works).
But I also wonder, do I feel stronger now because of my toxic workplace ordeal? Was it a necessary stage on my evolutionary path?
Beneath the surface-level script of toxic office dynamics, the real story was one of authority figures touching wounds I’d carried since childhood — that I’d never even realised I carried, let alone needed to tend.
I now know that I’ll never again allow myself to be spoken to in ways I tolerated during the early days of my toxic workplace ordeal — when I turned a blind eye to boundary violations because young parts of myself were scared of the potential consequences of being ejected from my tribe.
I later conquered that fear by quitting. In my mind, resigning was like going into self-imposed exile — only to discover that the supposed wilderness outside the castle walls was a lot more fecund than I’d once assumed. (Survival Tool #27: Take a Pay Cut).
And I won’t let those young parts feel alone and afraid again.
But first I had to meet those parts, hear their stories, and make space for the hurt they’d carried for so long to be felt.
Only then could a more adult part of myself — perhaps even my Higher Self — offer comfort, reassurance and guidance — and a form of leadership that my young parts can trust.
This integration has changed me, forever — in a way that feels wholesome and clear.
And for that, I owe my toxic workplace, and all its denizens, a thank-you.
Summary
“Our toxic workplace ordeal will touch young parts of ourselves that never received the validation, co-regulation and safety they needed growing up. We can use our ordeal as a mirror to get to know these parts — and enlist the support of our adult parts to finally provide the care and witnessing they deserve.”
Further Resources
I’m enjoying the work of
, a Berlin-based writer exploring narcissism, self-development and power dynamics. Here is a sample:
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